Author: Evilness

Instead of doing my school observations this weekend, I and the Evil clan nipped off to the Alberta Star Party. The first night I had to borrow Mrs. Evil’s telescope since, by tradition now apparently, I forgot the tripod for mine. A quick trip back to…

For people who thinks that the census and gun registry are invasions of privacy, it’s amazing that Harper and his government have no problem spying on everone’s email and texts.

It would seem that Ted Morton, candidate for the leadership of the Alberta Progressive Conservative Party and hence premier of Alberta and who has been campaigning on openness and accountability has a secret identity. Seems Dr. Morton used an alias ema…

With school (both work and study) back upon me, my observation time shifts back to scientific imaging. The past month though I had some time to take some “pretty picture” astrophotos. One is from the WCO and the rest are from my first trip to the SSSP….

… I told you so. It looks like the Harper Tories are going to bury their heads in the sand like they were going to do during the first dip of recession. Basically Flaherty has told the Commons finance committee that spending is the cause of the reces…

Back here I opined about the reason for the reversion of the names of our air and naval forces to RCAF and RCN. Basically that the Harper Government wanted to distract everyone from something else. A perusal of the progressive blogosphere over the past…

… or tape… or hard drive or whatever…. An interesting little short by the Winnipeg Skeptics.

Ok, the Harper government has leaked that the air force and navy will go back to their old monikers of RCAF and RCN. Now as a former reserve member who joined when we all wore green uniforms (and shortly after was issued a blue one, then a transfer la…

Or is Stephen Harper about to channel R.B. Bennett? The parallels are actually quite striking.

Not much political commentary this past few weeks, but I’ve been taking some astrophotos. This time the summer Milky Way, a close neighbour, and a stellar nursery.

…would be useful someday. Well in all seriousness I did, but this made some of the theory a little less theoretical. My bi-monthly edition of SkyNews showed up shortly after the end of the postal strike with a beautiful Hubble shot of the interacting…

Even by the standard for stupid set up by conservatives in both the US and Canada, this takes the cake. An Arizona state senator (Republican – naturally) singlehandedly sets back her own agenda by pointing a loaded pistol at a reporter, in the state as…

Before my premature bug-out due to severe weather this weekend, I did manage to do some imaging. Sticking with the theme related to the Ring nebula photos posted here another bright summer planetary nebula M27 – the Dumbbell nebula was the target on Sa…

…or Terry Milewsk learns that to Harper and his followers, the only balanced reporting is that which parrots the propaganda put out by the PMO. Now I don’t think that Terry is that naive, but the exchange between him and former Tory PMO Chiefs of St…

This past weekend I was out at the Starland Recreation Area to do some observing. While napping on Sunday I awoke to the sound of thunder. I had just enough time to batten down the hatches (about 3 minutes) before an intense thunder storm hit. Winds up…

So having my CCD imager back from the shop some time ago I’ve been itching to use it again but was delayed by poor weather and ironically observations for one of my courses. Well my course ended at the beginning of June and Friday night was clear for a…

… the editorials in the Calgary Herald, a paper that is usually a mouthpiece for the Harper Conservatives is taking them to task for an action. In this case the Herald editorial writers, normally people who haven’t met a union they couldn’t slam, are…

Ok not really, but the solar dynamo looks like it’s going to be quiet for the next few years. What this means is the current 11 year sunspot cycle, number 24, will likely peak at a lower set of sunspot numbers than the previous two cycles. Further, the…

With the climate change debate raging on, despite what the science is actually saying, there is a need to look at the long view. Now I don’t mean a short long term of a couple of hundred or even thousand years. I mean an actual long view in the million…

Lame duck Alberta premier Ed Stelmach, showing the typical Tory ability to lie their face off, decided yesterday to blame Alberta’s teachers for their own impending layoffs. Stating that the Alberta Teachers’ Association refused to take pay cuts, Stelm…